PHUBBING BEHAVIOUR, AGE AND RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION AS ANTECEDENTS OF ATTITUDE TOWARDS MARITAL INFIDELITY AMONG FEMALE NURSES IN OWERRI, IMO STATE

Abstract

The study investigated whether phubbing behaviour, age and relationshipsatisfaction antecede attitudes towards marital infidelity. Data were collected via a convenientsampling technique from a sample of 250 Married female Nurses from different privatehospitals in Owerri. Their ages ranged from 18 - 60 years. The participants completed self-reported measures of the Attitude towards infidelity Scale (ATIS) developed by Wheatley(2006), the Phubbing behaviour Scale (PS) developed by Karadag et. al., (2015) and theRelationship Assessment Scale (RAS) developed by Hendricks (1988). The design used wascross sectional survey design and descriptive statistics and hierarchical multiple regressionwere used to analyse the data. The results indicated that only relationship satisfactionnegatively and significantly precedes attitudes towards marital infidelity (β=-.32,t=-5.181,p<.01). However, phubing behaviour (β=.01, t= -190 p>.005) and age (β=-1.0, t= (-1.492), p<.005) do not affect attitudes towards marital infidelity. Thus, it is recommendedthat partners be sensitized to the need to curb infidelity and strengthen emotional bonds as thequality of their relationship antecedents, whether one should engage in marital infidelity ornot.